


Westeros Most Haunted

by Aviss



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghost Hunters, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Ghosts, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:21:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22549219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aviss/pseuds/Aviss
Summary: 'In this episode of Westeros Most Haunted we go to the Twins, the old castle that was the scenario of the most famous treachery and not one but two bloody massacres--'...The one were Jaime and Brienne are Ghost Hunters and they find the one place that might be really cursed.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 66
Kudos: 192





	Westeros Most Haunted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Roccolinde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roccolinde/gifts).



> This was supposed to be just a short ficlet for a prompt, but it had another idea.   
> The prompt was A Frightened Kiss  
> I know zero about TV shows from the other side of the screen, so please forgive all the mistaked and my lack of research for this.

_'In this episode of Westeros Most Haunted we go to the Twins, the old castle that was the scenario of the most famous treachery and not one but two bloody massacres--'_ Jaime looked up from reading his script, a scowl on his face. "Seriously? Bloody massacres? Is there any other kind? Who writes this shit now, you were never this dramatic!"

Brienne felt like rolling her eyes at him but just kept checking her equipment, making sure they had enough battery for the camera and the torch. The last thing she wanted was for anything to happen to her equipment, which was quite expensive to replace even if she didn't have to pay for the replacement herself. "Stop moaning and memorize your script, we don't want to lose the light we have." 

"These things are usually better at sunset," he retorted because Jaime was Jaime and he could never let anyone have the last word, not even Brienne. He went back to reading his script, in silence, with one wary look at the old castle.

Even from this distance and in the sunlight the air felt cold and oppressive, the walled-off area surrounding the castle was overgrown with ivy and other weeds, the closest road two miles away aiding to the feeling of isolation and timelessness of the place.

It really felt like a haunted place.

For an episode for their show this was going to suck, technically speaking, even the best of handheld cameras was insufficient in a dark, enclosed space, and they had no idea what they were going to find in there. It was going to look like the amateur stuff they did before.

On the other hand, the content was going to make this one the most popular of their already wildly popular show: The Twins were looming in the background, grey and blocky and gloomy. The castle had fallen into disrepair centuries ago after the Frey family had been assassinated in retaliation for the murder of the Northern King and his retinue during the Red Wedding. The Twins had been given to two different Riverlands families after the fall of King's Landings by King Brandon the Broken. It had gone to House Perryn first, they had all disappeared without a trace six months after moving in. A year later House Deddings had received it, the head of the house had died barely a month after taking the seat and the rest of the household had fled, returning to their villages with terrible tales about the place. 

It had never been inhabited since but as the scenario of one of the darkest tales from an already dark era it fascinated millions of people, Jaime and Brienne chief among them.

It was sure to bring the largest audience they'd ever had.

Getting all the permits to film in The Twins had been difficult and they only got them under strict conditions. Just the two of them and one camera were allowed in the castle, and they'd had to sign enough paperwork and responsibility waivers to kill a medium-sized forest. This was going to end up looking like the Kingswood Witch Project, but it would be worth it.

"Are you ready?" Brienne asked once she had double and triple checked everything, the camera resting comfortably on her shoulder. 

"Always," he said with a wide smile that didn't hide the trepidation in his expression. "Are you, wench?"

She didn't dignify that with a response, just lifted her eyebrows and started the camera. Jaime had already spirited away the script and he was staring at The Twins, his profile kissed by the sun, his hair a golden halo around his head. 

He turned and fixed his bright green eyes on Brienne through the camera. 

"We're here, our dear followers," he began, his voice changing registry to the deeper one he used on air. " _We made it_. In this episode of Westeros Most Haunted we go--"

Brienne followed him with her camera, making sure to keep both the castle and Jaime in the frame until they were so close all she could see through her lens was Jaime and the grey stone of the Twins. 

They really were there, they had made it to the most haunted place in the realm.

When Jaime and Brienne met in college, both of them studying medieval history and both of them interested in the darker aspects of the Targaryen restoration, they had not become fast friends. They had not even become friends or just simple classmates, they had become sworn enemies. 

Brienne had hated the entitled Lannister boy who pranced around Riverrun College as if he owned the place, who challenged and mocked her but always spent as much time as her in the library, researching and painstakingly completing his assignments. She had hated him, the rich pretty boy who had everyone fawning over him though he seemed to spend as much time on his own as she did. Brienne had been unable to stop looking for him everywhere she went, half hoping and half dreading she would find him.

Jaime, for his part, had disliked the uptight and serious girl who was always challenging him, always one step ahead on research, or one second faster in the training field. He had disliked her but had also been fascinated by her, by the way she was always direct and sincere, even when it would be convenient for her to lie, and by her incredible eyes. "Is that even a real colour?" he had asked one night, years later, while they edited one of their early programs over take out in the hotel room they shared.

At the end of their first year, the Connington incident had happened; Jaime had punched Ronnet Connington in the face during one lecture. Brienne had found out later that Connington and some of the other guys in their class, the ones that had suddenly become friendly with her, had had a bet to relieve her of her virginity. Someone had suggested inviting Jaime to participate, thinking he would enjoy humiliating Brienne because they hated each other. 

They had thought he would laugh.

He had not.

They had become friends after that, bonding over their love for the creepiest and darkest tales of the past. By the time they finished college they had decided to spend a gap year travelling around Westeros chasing haunted houses, most of the times finding little more than rotting wood and old pipes were responsible for the haunting. 

Brienne had filmed their outings; Jaime was a natural in front of a camera, the Lannister bullshit training he had called it, joking about how much his father would hate seeing his heir wasting his life that way before he had uploaded it for the entire world to see. Soon their little amateur program had over two million followers in raventube and they got a deal with a TV station to make it a professional one, with Jaime being pretty in front of the camera and Brienne being, well, behind it.

It wasn't the life she had envisioned when she'd left Tarth, it was so much better.

The moment they were inside the twins it was like they were stepping inside another universe. The light disappeared almost completely once they crossed the door, the few windows set high in the dark stone were boarded or covered in centuries of grime, the light of Brienne's torch illuminating just a circle of a few feet ahead of Jaime. 

Suddenly Brienne wondered whether it had been a good idea to accept coming here just the two of them, if they shouldn't have pushed for a full team. This castle was giving her the creeps in a way none of the other places they had filmed did, and they had filmed in Harrenhal.

Jaime stuttered in his recitation of the script, shuddering visibly.

"Wow, this is like stepping in the Winterfell crypts only more sinister," he said with a smile that didn't look right to her. He looked beyond the camera and into Brienne's eyes, a clear sign that he was unsettled. "It's cold as balls in here," he announced with forced levity.

" _Jaime_ ," Brienne admonished him, matching his tone. "No cursing, we can't edit this recording, remember?"

"Oops." He gave his most unrepentant smile and Brienne rolled her eyes. It really was unseasonably cold in there; outside, the temperature had been mild as befit spring in the North of the Riverlands, and while a drop in temperature was expected once they got inside, she could practically see her breath. "It's very cold, my dear wench," Jaime said then affecting a posh accent that was less affectation and more him letting his upbringing through.

"It is," she admitted with a shiver.

He looked surprised for a moment, then shot her a pleased smile before going back to his script. Normally Jaime would talk to her during the entire recording of the episode but Brienne never replied, and if she did, it was edited out by the studio. This time they couldn't edit it, and they both knew it.

The studio wanted to give the impression that Jaime could be talking to anyone, especially because he never used Brienne's name, he always used that outdated nickname. Jaime had protested when the studio had told him he couldn't address Brienne directly; they had a banter established and people liked hearing Brienne's voice, but unfortunately the studio had been unmoved, something to do with the audience feeling that Jaime was speaking only to them. Jaime had complied, in his own way, and reverted to calling her wench when on air, the name he had given her back when they met in college.

She had hated the name back then, now she had to bite down on a smile when she heard it.

The poor lighting made the corridor feel unnaturally long, like those dreams were one ran and ran without approaching the door to the end. "I was joking before, but this place is really freezing cold and unsettling; much, much worse than Harrenhal." He kept looking back as they walked, seeking Brienne.s eyes like he was afraid she would disappear if he didn't look every ten seconds. "You remember it, don't you wench?"

"That's a difficult one to forget." 

It had been there, in Harrenhal, with Jaime telling the story of the bearpit and the maiden not so fair that Brienne had finally admitted, if only to herself, that she was in love with him. She could perfectly picture his smile as he had turned and looked at her, "I would jump into a bear pit for you, wench," he had said, and her heart had tried to crawl up her throat to land at his feet. "Though hopefully, I won't have to lose a hand first."

"With or without bear?" she had joked, praying her tone didn't reveal what she was feeling. 

He had looked offended at the suggestion and she had laughed. "With bear, what would I defend you from then to prove my devotion?"

He had defended her from the Conningtons of the world and that was enough, but she couldn't say that. "Defend me from your awful pick-up lines."

That had been one they had done before being hired by the studio, when they still bantered during the filming. It had been the reason they had been hired by the studio and it still was a fan favourite in their channel. They had filmed the half-burned ruin, the blackened stone scattered over the ground and the few standing walls that looked like health hazards. there wasn't enough of the structure standing for them to do a whole section inside, but the rumours they had chased spoke about the faceless man who supposedly had killed some of the guards there at the beginning of the War of the Five Kings.

There had been nothing but stone and weeds, but the feeling of the place had been eery and even through the camera it had been easy to see why people thought it was haunted. The worst part had been the dungeon where it was documented many atrocities had been committed and the stone seemed to have absorbed some part of it. 

But they had found no restless spirits there, just old stone and bones and tales.

"There was nothing in Harrenhal, remember?" she said now and Jaime shrugged.

"That doesn't mean there is nothing here," he said with a half-turn to the camera. She could see his breath forming in front of his face and knew the camera was picking that up.

There was a noise close by and they both jumped, startled.

"Did you hear that?" Jaime asked, it had sounded like a knock on a door or a wall. Brienne swallowed, the hairs on her arms standing on end.

"I did."

Jaime looked around, but they could see nothing beyond the circle illuminated by her torch. "I don't like this," he said, and for the first time since they had started this program, he sounded genuinely scared.

They had been to some of the spookiest places together; they had been to the Crypts in Winterfell, where they filmed with permission from the Starks. It had been cold and dark and disturbing, but there had been a benign feeling to the place. Even the judgemental stares of many generations of Starks looking down on a Lannister, as Jaime had joked, had felt like they were protected and nothing bad could happen to them there. "Well, the Kingslayer ended being a friend of the Starks, more or less," Brienne had said when Jaime mentioned it.

"His name was Jaime. I should know, I share it, and I'm as pretty as he was supposed to be," he had retorted, making Brienne snort.

If the Kingslayer had been as pretty as Jaime it was a miracle he had never married though there had been many rumours about him. "And as arrogant as well."

Eastwatch, on the other hand, had felt sad and old and terrible, and like the dead would rise at any point and try to take it down again. They had not liked it there, the old abandoned Watch castle still surrounded by ice blocks fallen from the breach on the Wall, and yet it still hadn't felt as cold as this one now.

This felt ten times worse. 

This place felt menacing, but not in the generic way where something bad had happened, like in the old Red Keep or in Highgarden where too many people had died and there was a feeling of sadness and tragedy that sometimes permeated the walls. This was menacing. And this was personal.

"Maybe we should leave, Jaime," she said, and immediately cursed herself for a coward. "You know what, ignore what I just said."

"We haven't even made it to the Great Hall," Jaime replied, but he wasn't protesting because she wanted to leave or telling her she was being silly. He also felt something, it was plain in his hesitant tone. "The door can't be too far away, can it?" Further than it should be, the castle wasn't that big and they had been walking long enough they could have covered half of it. At least it was what it felt like to Brienne, but the almost complete darkness and the lack of noise with the exception of their steps and their breath was making things feel weird.

"Come on wench, let's spice things up or this chapter is going to be very boring," Jaime said, his voice adopting a false cheer she had not heard before. "Let's play a game."

"Ok, what do you want to play?"

"I spy--"

She saw the open doorway then. " _The door_." They had finally arrived, on the other side of the door there was a darkness that felt even deeper and blacker than the one that surrounded them.

"This is the door to the Great Hall where Walder Frey received his guests and where the wedding banquet took place," Jaime said, turning to look at her. Brienne didn't like the expression in his eyes. She didn't like the fear they showed because normally they would laugh while they were filming these things. 

They chased rumours of haunted places, but they both knew there was rarely any truth in them.

"I'm not sure ghosts really exist," Jaime had confided in her one night, right after they had signed with the studio. They had been offered the opportunity to make it seem more real, just some pre-arranged things the studio would set to spark more interest in the show; apparently, it was better for the ratings if every once in a while one of the hauntings looked real, "but I refuse to let them tell a lie."

They had not found proof one way or the other, though Brienne had to admit some of the places they had visited felt like they should have had a ghost or two.

This place felt like it had way too many, and they were all hungry.

She shuddered. "Jaime," she said, and her voice didn't sound right. He turned to look at her with a frown and at his back, she saw something move, right at the edge of the circle of light. "What was that?"

Jaime turned his back to her and looked around, Brienne followed the moment of his head from left to right scanning the darkness beyond what she could see.

"There is nothing here, wench." Jaime wouldn't lie.

"I must be more nervous than I thought," she tried to sound more upbeat and not like she was freaking out. They had filmed in many places, they had never found a ghost. She had to keep telling herself that, there was no reason for them to find them the one time they had no backup and no easy way out.

"Of course you are, this place is giving me serious creeps, it's not only dark and cold but there is this weird smell. Not like an enclosed space, I know what something musty and closed smells like. This place smells really bad, rotten," Jaime said, his nose scrunched in disgust, still slowly advancing in the darkness. Brienne couldn't smell what he said but had a feeling of _badwrongawful_ all the same. "For those of you who don't know the story," He turned to look at the camera, his brows knitted in concern when he looked at her, "this is where the banquet would have taken place. When they arrived, The King in the North and Lady Catelyn Stark demanded salt and bread like it was the custom of the time. It was unheard of to harm anyone who had received guest right from any noble house, beaking that sacred right made the already unpopular Freys become even more ostracized at the time," Jaime explained as he walked around the open space the way he usually did during the show. They usually explained parts of the story for the audience. "Walder Frey sat in his throne, because he believed himself important enough to warrant one, and gave his usual speech."

' _My honoured guests, be welcome within my walls and at my table._ '

Brienne stopped at the whisper of a voice, old and cracked, so soft she could have thought she had imagined it except Jaime had stopped talking and moving. He seemed to have even stopped breathing.

"Did you--?" she asked, moving well past unnerved and running full speed into a complete freakout.

" _No_." He waited until Brienne was right behind him, his golden head covering most of the camera frame. "Well, if it wasn't either you or me, then we have our answer. There seem to be real ghosts in here. And I bet they're not friendly."

Not to a Lannister, not in here if they were the ghosts of the Red Wedding.

As if summoned by his words, there was the scraping of a chair next somewhere to their right. Brienne's free hand snapped out and grabbed Jaime's wrist, clamping around it like a vice.

"We should go."

Another chair moving over the ground, another whisper of a voice. _'My nephew is a damned fool._ ' and the temperature dropped again, making her shiver and whish for another jacket or the blanket she kept over her couch at home.

Brienne wished she was a home now, curled with a good book on his couch while Jaime texted her about all the things he saw and read and thought while he was in his own home. Which was barely five streets away. And then he'd decide not to cook and order takeout for the both of them and wind up in Brienne's house, curled on the other side of her couch while they watched some horror movie or other.

This was the part where, in those horror movies, the soon to be dead people made the wrong decision and stayed or separated.

"I think that's a good idea," he agreed, turning his arm in her grip so he could grab her hand right before some pounding noise started. Brienne moved her camera around, trying to illuminate as much of the wide chamber as possible but there was only one torch and the place was too dark and too wide. The noise was like hundreds of metal knives and goblets hitting wood, and a chant rising that set Brienne's teeth on edge. ' _Frey, Frey, Frey._ '

"Let's go!" She pulled at Jaime's hand, which was now cold and clammy in hers, to try and make him move but he didn't budge, rooted to the spot.

"Do you see her, Brienne?" Jaime didn't sound like himself, his voice strangled and thin as if it would snap and disappear at the smallest pressure, Brienne was afraid to look.

She did, though, and turned the camera with her. There, on the floor where there had been nothing two minutes before, was a woman now, pale and faded like a photograph left too long under the sun. She would have been older than them, her face the picture of pain and grief and pure, undiluted, hatred. There was a gash on her neck from side to side and blood pooling around her prone form, once hand extended towards them. And around them that solid block of noise, a crescendo of laughter and screams that hurt her ears until they popped and thick silence fell on the room, expectant.

' _The Lannisters send their regards_.' 

"Oh no!" Brienne choked and pulled harder at Jaime's hand until he finally turned to look at her, his eyes as big as she had ever seen them. "Let's go!" Brienne shouted in his face, her heart threatening to pound out of her chest. Finally, he snapped out of it, nodded once, and followed her. 

It wasn't as simple as turning around and leaving, though, she couldn't see the door they had come through now, they had got turned around because of the noises and they couldn't risk venturing further in. 

"I think it was that way," Jaime said, pointing at a patch of darkness that looked to Brienne like any other patch of darkness except it didn't have the bleeding woman in it, so it was a good direction for them to go to.

They walked as quick as the darkness permitted, running there was as bad an idea as staying still, and clutched each other's hands. "This is the last time I'm filming without a full crew," she said, and as soon as she spoke there a single note began to play, softly at first but gaining volume the same as the noise had before.

She liked it even less than she had the noise.

Jaime's hand squeezed hers hard enough to hurt but she didn't complain. "Oh fuck," was all he said when a second note and then a third followed, then he was moving faster and pulling Brienne with him. "Run, Brienne, run!"

She did, she knew what song was beginning to play and she knew the doors would close when it did. 

They didn't want to be trapped on this side of the door.

Her torch flickered, plunging them in the most absolute of darkness for a moment before it started again. It proved to be a blessing in disguise, the faintest of lights signalling the direction of the door, slightly to the right to where Jaime had directed them to, "Come on, come on, wench."

"The door!" she shouted, pulling him to the right where she had just seen the doorway, rushing as if the hounds of hell were pushing at their heels, The Rains of Castamere playing at their back as they crossed the door. 

Silence. Nothing but their panting breaths and the sound of their footsteps. 

Still, they didn't stop, they kept moving towards the main door. Compared to the absolute terrifying pitch-black darkness of the Great Hall there was some light in here, just some parts where it was dark grey instead of black, the air a few degrees warmer. They reached the outer door almost immediately, crossed it, and kept running. 

Outside the sun hadn't set yet, still high in the sky and warming them immediately.

Brienne was panting heavily when they reached the van, still shuddering and feeling like something cold and malicious was watching them from the castle. She had not let go of Jaime's hand, the camera still filming but now hanging from her other arm by the wrist strap and hitting against her legs while she ran. She pressed her back against the van and gulped in some air, staring at the castle in the distance. 

"I can't--" she started, willing her heart to stop pounding. She couldn't say anything else, her mouth suddenly covered by Jaime's. He was still panting, his chest heaving where it was pressed against Brienne's, one of his hands clamped on the back of her neck, the other one still holding hers and now pressed against her cheek. She could feel his heart hammering against his ribcage, or it might just be hers and he would be able to feel it as well. 

His lips were soft, though. Soft and insistent where they pushed against her, his tongue parting her lips and delving inside like a starving man, ungentle and desperate. It wasn't a good kiss, if that was what it was, and Brienne tried to slow it down, to contain him but Jaime was still trembling against her and trying to crawl inside her. 

Brienne finally let the camera fall to the ground and used her free hand to grab at his hair and pull until Jaime froze, his eyes wide and wild on her face. He moved away, but only far enough he could set their foreheads together. This close, Brienne could only see his eyes, they filled her entire vision and that was fine by her. Brienne didn't mind looking at his ridiculously pretty eyes and forgetting about everything else.

"I thought we were going to die there," he said, his voice as shaky as he was. 

"So did I," Brienne admitted because she had also believed it. 

"No, you don't get it." He squeezed her hand, trying to get her to understand what was going through his head. "I thought we were going to die and I had never kissed you." She froze then, her heart which had calmed a bit, picking up pace again. "We were going to die and I had not held you, or told you I loved you, and I was going to die a coward who had never dared kiss you."

Brienne had stopped breathing by the end and now she was the one trembling in his arms, not just with the remnants of adrenaline. "Jaime," she said, her voice a whine while she looked into his eyes, searching.

It was there, what she had never dared believe before, his heart showing out of his stunning eyes.

She kissed him, he was right, they had almost died there and she didn't want to spend one more second without kissing him. 

This time the kiss was everything she had wanted, still desperate and deep, but their lips fit perfectly against each other, same as their bodies. She released his hand and grabbed fistfuls of his hair with both hands, holding his head so she could taste it how she liked it, he passed his now free hand around her back and pressed her closer to him, his warmth finally claiming her shivers. They kissed until they were both short of breath and their legs were refusing to hold them anymore, until the sky started purpling and the temperature dropped and they moved apart without speaking. 

Brienne grabbed the camera from the ground, stopped the recording and climbed on the driver seat while Jaime took the other side. 

When they got to the hotel, they dropped together on one of the beds and kept on kissing until they fell asleep. 

The Twins episode of Westeros Most Haunted is the last and the most popular in the history of the program and the studio. The fan's favourite part, however, isn't the 30 minutes where they can see a real-life haunting, terrifying as that part is, but the end, where the camera shows only Jaime and Brienne's feet and they can hear a very heartfelt love declaration.


End file.
